Vintage Baseball Glove Forum

A glove I had in college that "walked off" in somebody else's equipment bag: a 12" or 12.5" MacGregor or Franklin "Slingback" model. It was a department store glove, purchased at a little pre-Wal-Mart store here in Texas called Gibson's. I don't remember exactly what the "Slingback" feature was on the glove. It was probably something similar to a Rawlings WingTip, maybe, or the Rawlings Fastback. Whatever the Slingback feature was, the company was awfully proud of it. The word "Slingback" was plastered across the back of the glove! I liked that glove; I was pretty hot when it disappeared. Its disappearance forced me buy my Wilson A2124 George Brett.

Anybody have any information on the Slingback? I might like to have one again just for the sake of nostalgia ...

Cowboy, LOL! someone else who remembers Gibsons. Sort of the forerunner to Wal Marts. (Sam saw what was happening).
I'll try to lok up the "Slingback" for you. What years would this have been, late '80s?
Like you, my Nokona, one of the first of the Kangaroo gloves of the late 1950s, was heisted from me in the service. When I got out and back to Texas thought I could buy another Kangy but they were gone from the market by then. I switched to the Rawlings JG Groth model.
Maybe we should post on purloined leathers.

There is a MacGregor "Slingback" Willie Mays glove someone down in my glove vault (one of the five or six big plastic tubs down in the basement). It's not just similar to the Wing Tip- it's exactly like it!

I'm prety sure that there is another one- maybe a Spalding?- that looks the same and was called the "Saddleback".

Wasn't the idea behind these gloves to move the seams where the fingers attach, to get a more durable seam? If that was the case, the "Wing Tip" design wasn't as revolutionary as it first seems. That configuration looks a lot like the "diverted seam" gloves first sold by Ken-Wel about forty years earlier!

I found the style referred to in the 1982 MacGregor catalog calling it the "Wingback." "For better shape retention"...I can't locate my 70s Spadlings but will continue to search.
And right Bret , I think this design is borrowed from Ken Wel's diverted seam idea.

There is a Franklin Slingback catcher's mitt in ebay Express right now! Unfortunately, no pics of the back of the mitt.

Hmmm, MacGregor AND Franklin .... Slingback and Wingback ... now what was it I REALLY owned? now I'm getting a headache ...

Joe - do you remember when "Strike-it-Rich" stores took the place of Gibson's? Or did that only happen here in Abilene? I think I got the A2124 George Brett at Strike-it-Rich right after it took over the Gibson's store, and just before Wal-Mart swooped in. But whenever I talk about where I got my glove, I always say "Wal-Mart." It's easier than trying to explain what a Strike-it-Rich store was!

Upon further review....

Sorry for the confusion, Cowboy. The MacGregor glove I have is labled "Wingback", not "Slingback". I had the MacGregor and Franklin switched around.

Cowboy I don't remember the "Strike It Rich" stores over in east Texas. A funny story while I lived in Longview. I would visit a gun store next door to Gibson's there and the proprietor was a chatty guy, who, when one of his customers would threaten to go across the road to compare gun prices at Gibsons,with his store's, he called it the "Ho Chi Mihn" trail.
Seems I remember a Howards Gibsons, then just a Howards discount store after the Gibsons shut down. Gibsons carried a pretty decent line of gloves and I used a Rawlings XPG8 Boyer in my first ever slow pitch game that I played in around 1966, which was about all I could afford.

Here ya go, Cowboy!

It's a Franklin!

Yep, that's the one! probably gonna have to bid on that one too ... a little bit of work and I might make a user out of that one!